Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 12

Assess Change over Time: Each of these documents sheds light on the ways particular people viewed slavery and the problems associated with it. What do the documents reveal about how abolitionism’s influence had grown from the 1830s, when it was a tiny and marginal movement, to the 1850s? Do the documents help to answer questions about why this change had taken place?

Explain Change: These documents provide evidence about the emergence and growing influence of the Republican Party in the short period of time between 1854 and 1858. What do the documents show about how national events contributed to the party’s increasing size and significance in American politics? What do they show about the role Republicans’ own strategies played in the party’s ballooning size and strength? Which was more important?

Make Comparisons: What do these sources suggest about the differences between moderate Republicans and radical Republicans? How did they differ on questions about the social and political problems posed by slavery and its future in the United States? What made it possible for these two very different constituencies to unite within the same political party?

Consider Gender: What do these various sources reveal about how their authors perceived of manhood, womanhood, and the relations between the sexes? How did their various views differ for whites and blacks? How significant were appeals to gender issues in the process of spreading and popularizing free-soil and free-labor ideology, abolitionists’ arguments, and the Republican Party’s platform in the North in the 1850s?